Phased array antenna panels are used to generate steerable beams that may be utilized in wireless and satellite communication systems. Phased arrays create a focused beam that can be steered very quickly to maintain a link for any on-the-move communication system. Conventional wireless communications systems can also utilize steerable beams to communicate with multiple wireless nodes by moving the beams from one wireless node to the next. A single beam may service multiple wireless nodes in a sequence and repeat the sequence periodically such that each wireless node appears to be in constant communications with the system.
Beam forming (or steering) is generally implemented utilizing low noise amplifiers (LNAs), power amplifiers (PAs), phase shifters, and/or other components in transceiver circuitry. The amplifiers utilized for beam forming either drive or are driven by respective antenna elements of the phased array antenna to produce and steer the beams. Existing implementations for beamformer-like circuits combine low noise amplifiers (LNAs) and/or power amplifiers (PAs) into a single chip solution. In single chip implementations, performance characteristics such as Noise Figure (NF) of a receive (RX) chain and/or output power of a transmit (TX) chain are degraded due to loss from the feeding network between the beamformer chip and the antenna elements. Single chip embodiments are also more susceptible to input-to-output coupling and external signal jams.
It would be desirable to implement a beam forming module for high-isolation and low noise figure systems.